Inflation Pressures Are Easing but Rate Cut Forecast Remains Uncertain

The New Year is beginning where the old one ended -- with uncertainty about when – or whether – the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates.

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Layoffs are declining, the employment numbers look better, tight credit is getting looser, retail spending forecasts are becoming more optimistic and the service sector shows signs of strengthening. In fact, many indicators suggest the economy is improving – but not fast enough to reduce the unemployment rate nor dramatically enough to lift an increasingly downbeat consumer mood.

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As the shock waves from robo-signed and otherwise flawed foreclosures intensify, it is becoming clear that the collateral damage may spread to the paperless mortgage system that has taken root and flourished over the past decade.

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Standard advice when you’re in a hole is – before you do anything else, stop digging. But that strategy doesn’t seem to be working for the financial institutions trying to find a way out of the foreclosure morass in which they are buried. While the institutions have tossed their shovels aside, lawmakers, consumer advocates, class action attorneys and investors are digging furiously around them, widening a hole that is already plenty deep.

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Keeping track of the foreclosure mess is becoming almost a full time job. New developments surface almost daily and the implications widen with each analysis of the sloppy (and potentially fraudulent) paperwork that has spawned foreclosure challenges nationwide, triggered calls for foreclosure moratoria, launched multiple investigations, and raised question not just about the legitimacy of many foreclosure actions but about the credibility and viability of the paperless mortgage system that has evolved over the past several years.